junk that’s often broken. Like the people in it, our house’s furniture is charming but doesn’t really do what it’s supposed to. I have an old 1950s bedroom set, made of white melamine with a sort of grey tiger-stripe pattern going on. There are a couple of handles missing and one of the dressing table drawers won’t open (Holly, has speculated that it may contain the ashes of a murder victim). At first I thought it looked uber lame but I must admit, now that it’s got all my stuff on it, it’s pretty cool. A rainbow selection of clothes peek out of the wardrobe, lounge on the bed and curl up on my dressing-table like old friends.
My phone beeps. Text: PIRATE. It’s Holly. Her surname is Rodgers. Holly Rodgers. Jolly Roger? Pirate. Don’t blame me. I didn’t invent the rules about nicknames. Why do they always have to be something insulting? When people try to start their own nickname it’s always so obvious. They give it away every time by trying to make it sound cool like ‘Laser’ or ‘Hawkeye’. It never sticks. Fart in PE once, though, and you’re ‘Napalm’ for the next hundred years.
Anyway Holly has decided to “own” Pirate. It actually really suits her. She’s the most genuinely rebellious, take-no-prisoners, close-to-the-wind-sailing girl I know. Definitely the funniest. She got detention for titling her homework ‘A pain in the Pythagoras’ last week. Which shows you how much she hates authority. And maths, which is where she is now.
“Whr ru? M in hell pls snd hlp. X”
I picture her texting from her pocket without looking at the screen.
I message back. “@ home but going 2 the blue. Can u get out? X”
I know, I know, inciting her to truant. Well trust me – today may be a first for me, but for Holly it definitely isn’t. How Mr and Mrs Rodgers produced her I’ll never know. She’s from a family of nine and they’re very religious – they go to one of those churches with singing, clapping and lots and LOTS of smiling but NO ACTUAL SENSE OF HUMOUR. Our pirate friend is very much the cuckoo in the crow’s nest. She actually keeps a change of clothes at school for sneaking out.
“Cu in 20. X”
I’d better get changed myself. It’s funny – the things I wear make me even more of a freak to people round here but dressing up makes me feel better about it. I’ve tried toning it down but it’s like holding your breath. You can only last so long.
Ten minutes later, I am wearing a tea dress that in my head belonged to Drew Barrymore in around 1993, long woollen socks that come up past my knees, battered Nike hi-tops and a 1980s knitted hat made of sparkly lurex wool. Like all the best outfits it’s wrong on paper and right on the person.
By the time I get there, Hol is already standing outside The Bluebird Café dressed head to toe in black except for an enormous fuschia scarf which, being wrapped around her neck numerous times, makes her look like a gothic cupcake. She is jiggling up and down against the cold and…is she playing a kazoo?
“What the flip is that, you loon?”
“I believe the standard greeting is HELLO. Nicotine inhaler.”
“Hello. Why have you got a nicotine inhaler? You don’t smoke.”
“No smell. Mum and Dad.” She grimaces. “And I don”t smoke” but I was feeling so stressed out I started to, like, feel addicted to the idea of smoking? Except I don’t want to end up with a raisin face. So I half-inched this.”
She flicks imaginary ash from the end of the slim, white tube before going in for another drag, the cold air puppeting her blonde bob around her pixie-face. There’s a flash of blue as she looks up at me through her fringe. Blowing out non-existent smoke, nature plays along and freezes her breath which floats away in little clouds. She is an angel in eyeliner. Not that you can say stuff like that to her. She’s enough of a handful as it is.
“You look like you’re smoking a tampon. Get a hold of yourself, woman.”
I lead the way inside and pretend not to notice as she mimes putting out the ridiculous prop before tucking it behind her ear. The glass door slips shut behind us and we are suddenly in 1982 which is approximately when ‘The Blue’ was last redecorated.
Brown and red plastic predominates – booths, laminated menus, those tomatoes with ketchup inside and then the brown ones with brown sauce, their non-tomato status serving only to highlight the mysterious nature of their contents. At the back of the café is the reason we (and everybody else in town with a clue) come here. Racks of records and CDs frame a large hole in the wall behind which, illuminated by strings of fairy lights and an angle-poise lamp, is a small room stuffed from floor to ceiling with singles, albums, CDs and merchandise from bands-gone-by. MGMT are playing on crackly vinyl on the stereo. The Blue Room, at the back of The Bluebird Café, is the only non-chain record shop in town and apparently evolved from the days when The Blue was a 1950s ice-cream parlour with a jukebox at the back. But that’s not the reason we come here. The reason is perched on a high stool behind a book. The Dice Man.
“That Dan Ashton. So unbelievably hot. Hot!” Hol stage whispers behind her menu.
The book is readjusted momentarily revealing a black eyebrow, a mop of hair to match and one chocolate-brown eye.
She doesn’t notice. “So what gives? I take it you’re not ill. Ill people never wear hats.” I give her a quizzical look. “They haven’t got the energy to accessorise.” Hol tips a dose of sugar out of the dispenser on to the table and starts drawing in it with her fingers.
“Mum and Ray are getting married.”
“Shut up!”
“They are.”
“SHUT UP!” This time she reaches across the booth and punches me in the shoulder, sprinkling grains of Tate and Lyle down my chest in the process. I brush them away.
“No. Seriously. A wedding – cake, singing, a really embarrassing horse and cart. Me probably being forced to wear a lilac dress. Them dancing together.” I shudder, recollecting the scene I walked in on earlier. “It’s a nightmare.”
Holly pouts her bottom lip. “Oh, Can. That’s terrible. That’s…Ooh! I forgot! I brought THESE for us!” She reaches into her enormous yellow pleather bag and produces two pairs of sunglasses. Hers are electric blue with glittery frames in the shape of two butterflies, mine are white with red stripes like a candy cane. The frame contorts into a letter L on one side of the lenses and K on the other.
“And these are?”
She throws her hands up, universal sign language for “Duh!”
“They’re a disguise? So that we can, like, do stuff today without attracting too much attention? I got them from the arcade on the way over.” She slips hers on and turns butterfly-eyed to the surly waitress who has just appeared beside our booth. “A pair of cokes and one chips, please, garçon.”
The waitress, who is about nineteen but looks way older, purses her lips, shakes her head and stalks off in disapproving silence.
To be honest I didn’t expect much sympathy from Pirate. Holly is not great at bad news, operating a blanket policy of “tuning out negativity”. I think of it as just ignoring stuff. She must read my thoughts because she reaches across the booth, gives my forearm a rub, then a pat before finishing off with a few more firm slaps on my shoulder. I feel like a sofa
